The Killing Tree by Rachel Keener Read Free Book Online

when I walked in.
    “Sorry, Lord’s Supper today.”
    He nodded, mumbling something about not making a habit of it.
    “New dress?”
    “Yep,” I replied, praying he wouldn’t think I was wearing it for him.
    “Pretty. All swirly too—like that Merlin Munroe. You should wear it today. Bet you’d make good tips.”
    “And I’d have to use ’em to buy a new dress too with all the stains I’d get on it,” I replied as I headed to the bathroom
     to change.
    Somewhere that day between sweet teas and pulled platters the lunch crowd disappeared, leaving me with a pocketful of change.
     I was wiping down tables when I heard Rusty exclaim, “Well well, Miss Della DeMar!” in his best French accent. I grinned to
     myself, knowing how bad she hated that. New teachers at school would always try to do the same, slurring a “dur” and drawing
     out a “mah.”
    “It’s day-mar,” she would always say, “like a cross between a mon-
day
and a
Mars
bar.”
    “Well hello there, Mr. Rusty Nail,” I heard her reply before breezing past him and plopping herself down in the booth I was
     cleaning.
    “You have a good time last night?” she asked.
    “Mhmm. You find a replacement for Carl?”
    “Found some potential. No sure bets, but some definite potential,” she replied. “You sure were quiet last night on the way
     home. Weren’t mad or nothing, were you?”
    “Just tired I guess.”
    “What was the matter, Trout got your tongue?” she asked, smiling.
    I could feel heat burning my face and filling my ears. Had he said something about me? I focused all my attention on a spot
     of dried barbecue stuck on the table.
    “No reason to be as sour as a yellow SweetTart, Mercy. You know I’m kidding. Besides, you’re too good for Trout. He’s just
     a mater migrant.”
    Mater migrants were people that traveled every summer to work the tomato and strawberry crops of the mountains’ riverbottom
     lands. Most of them were Mexicans without green cards. They were a despised people in Crooktop. Living in tents and pop-up
     campers around the fields they worked. Blistering their hands and warping their backs for a pitiful wage and all the maters
     they could eat. There were always a few white mater migrants. Men with bright red palms. Hands stained with the juice of the
     fruits they picked, branding them a lower class than the rest of Crooktop.
    “Yep, those mater migrants,” Della continued, “those are love-’em-and-leave-’em men, you know. Here today, gone by October.”
    I tried to change the subject. “You get that job at the new Ben Franklin?”
    “Uh-huh, gotta start tonight. I get ten percent off on makeup too. My boss, though, he’s gonna need to be tamed. You oughta
     come see me later tonight. I’ll sneak you a Coke.”
    I told her I might, but I knew that I wouldn’t. Sunday night was Heron yard night. After Father Heron came home from church
     and I got home from the diner we would weed the gardens, harvest Father Heron’s, and sometimes lightly prune the peonies—just
     to keep them healthy, not to “force” them into our idea of what the bush should look like. It was our only positive tradition.
     Mamma Rutha usually worked in her garden. Since we ate from Father Heron’s I focused most of my energy on it. I always began
     with the potatoes. To see the love knots they made as they grew. Yellow vines twisted beneath thick green leaves. Mamma Rutha
     caught me pulling them when I was little and told me I was breaking the potato’s heart, by untwisting its love knots.
    I never worked with gloves on. Like Mamma Rutha I preferred to just sink my hands down into that rich mountain earth. Liking
     the gritty feel of it beneath my nails. I was more cautious working in the corn, where the packsaddles lived. Fat green worms
     blending in with the stalks and stinging worse than bees. But my favorite was always the tomatoes. Breathing that heavy green
     scent was my weekly tonic. I secured the ties that